precursor of very strange consummations; last thing but one? If there is no atmosphere, what will it serve a man to demon strate the excellence of lungs? How much profitabler, when you can, like Abbot Samson, breathe; and go along your way!

CHAPTER XVI.

ST. EDMUND.

ABBOT SAMSON built many useful, many pious edifices; human dwellings, churches, church-steeples, barns;—all fallen now and vanished, but useful while they stood. He built and endowed 'the Hospital of Babwell;' built 'fit houses for the St. Edmundsbury Schools.' Many are the roofs once thatched with reeds' which he 'caused to be covered with tiles;' or if they were churches, probably 'with lead.' For all ruinous incomplete things, buildings or other, were an eye-sorrow to the man. We saw his 'great tower of St. Edmund's ;' or at least the roof-timbers of it, lying cut and stamped in Elmset Wood To change combustible decaying reed-thatch into tile or lead; and material, still more, moral wreck into rain-tight order, what a comfort to Samson!

One of the things he could not in any wise but rebuild was the great Altar, aloft on which stood the Shrine itself; the great Altar, which had been damaged by fire, by the careless rubbish and careless candle of two somnolent Monks, one night,-the Shrine escaping almost as if by miracle! Abbot Samson read his Monks a severe lecture: "A Dream one of us had, that he saw St. Edmund naked and in lamentable plight. Know ye the interpretation of that Dream? St. Edmund proclaims himself naked, because ye defraud the naked Poor of your old clothes, and give with reluctance what ye are bound to give them of meat and drink: the idleness moreover and negligence of the Sacristan and his people is too evident from the late misfortune by fire. Well might our Holy Martyr seem to lie cast out from his Shrine, and say with groans that he was stript of his garments, and wasted with hunger and thirst!"

This is Abbot Samson's interpretation of the Dream;diametrically the reverse of that given by the Monks themselves, who scruple not to say privily, "It is we that are the naked

and famished limbs of the Martyr; we whom the Abbot curtails of all our privileges, setting his own official to control our very Cellarer!" Abbot Samson adds, that this judgment by fire has fallen upon them for murmuring about their meat and drink.

Clearly enough, meanwhile, the Altar, whatever the burning of it mean or foreshadow, must needs be reëdified. Abbot Samson reëdifies it, all of polished marble; with the highest stretch of art and sumptuosity, reëmbellishes the Shrine for which it is to serve as pediment. Nay farther, as had ever been among his prayers, he enjoys, he sinner, a glimpse of the glorious Martyr's very Body in the process; having solemnly opened the Loculus, Chest or sacred Coffin, for that purpose. It is the culminating moment of Abbot Samson's life. Bozzy Jocelin himself rises into a kind of Psalmist solemnity on this occasion; the laziest monk 'weeps' warm tears, as Te Deum is sung.

Very strange ;—how far vanished from us in these unworshipping ages of ours! The Patriot Hampden, best beatified man we have, had lain in like manner some two centuries in his narrow home, when certain dignitaries of us, and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys,' raised him also up, under cloud of night, cut off his arm with penknives, pulled the scalp off his head,—and otherwise worshipped our Hero Saint in the most amazing manner ! Let the modern eye look earnestly on that old midnight hour in St. Edmundsbury Church, shining yet on us, ruddy-bright, through the depths of seven hundred years; and consider mournfully what our Hero-worship once was, and what it now is ! We translate with all the fidelity we can :

'The Festival of St. Edmund now approaching, the marble 'blocks are polished, and all things are in readiness for lifting ' of the Shrine to its new place. A fast of three days was held by all the people, the cause and meaning thereof being publicly set forth to them. The Abbot announces to the Convent ' that all must prepare themselves for transferring of the Shrine, ' and appoints time and way for the work. Coming therefore 'that night to matins, we found the great Shrine (feretrum magnum) raised upon the Altar, but empty; covered all over ' with white doeskin leather, fixed to the wood with silver nails; 'but one pannel of the Shrine was left down below, and rest

1 Annual Register (year 1828, Chronicle, p. 93), Gentleman's Magazine,

&c. &c.

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'ing thereon, beside its old column of the Church, the Loculus ' with the Sacred Body yet lay where it was wont. Praises being sung, we all proceeded to commence our disciplines (ad disciplinas suscipiendas). These finished, the Abbot and ' certain with him are clothed in their albs; and, approaching reverently, set about uncovering the Loculus. There was an ' outer cloth of linen, enwrapping the Loculus and all; this we 'found tied on the upper side with strings of its own: within 'this was a cloth of silk, and then another linen cloth, and then a third; and so at last the Loculus was uncovered, and seen ' resting on a little tray of wood, that the bottom of it might ' not be injured by the stone. Over the breast of the Martyr, there lay, fixed to the surface of the Loculus, a Golden An'gel about the length of a human foot; holding in one hand a golden sword, and in the other a banner: under this there was a hole in the lid of the Loculus, on which the ancient 'servants of the Martyr had been wont to lay their hands for ' touching the Sacred Body. And over the figure of the Angel 'was this verse inscribed:

'Martiris ecce zoma servat Michaelis agalma.2

At the head and foot of the Loculus were iron rings whereby ' it could be lifted.

‘Lifting the Loculus and Body, therefore, they carried it 'to the Altar; and I put-to my sinful hand to help in carrying, though the Abbot had commanded that none should approach ' except called. And the Loculus was placed in the Shrine ;

' and the pannel it had stood on was put in its place, and the 'Shrine for the present closed. We all thought that the Abbot 'would show the Loculus to the people; and bring out the 'Sacred Body again, at a certain period of the Festival. But ' in this we were wofully mistaken, as the sequel shows.

For in the fourth holiday of the Festival, while the Con'vent were all singing Completorium, our Lord Abbot spoke 'privily with the Sacristan and Walter the Medicus; and order ' was taken that twelve of the Brethren should be appointed ' against midnight, who were strong for carrying the pannel' planks of the Shrine, and skilful in unfixing them, and putting ' them together again. The Abbot then said that it was among 'his prayers to look once upon the Body of his Patron; and 2 This is the Martyr's Garment, which Michael's Image guards.'

that he wished the Sacristan and Walter the Medicus to be ' with him. The Twelve appointed Brethren were these: The 'Abbot's two Chaplains, the two Keepers of the Shrine, the 'two Masters of the Vestry; and six more, namely, the Sacris'tan Hugo, Walter the Medicus, Augustin, William of Dice, 'Robert and Richard. I, alas, was not of the number.

'The Convent therefore being all asleep, these Twelve, 'clothed in their albs, with the Abbot, assembled at the Altar; ' and opening a pannel of the Shrine, they took out the Loculus; laid it on a table, near where the Shrine used to be; and made ready for unfastening the lid, which was joined ' and fixed to the Loculus with sixteen very long nails. Which when, with difficulty, they had done, all except the two fore• named associates are ordered to draw back. The Abbot and 'they two were alone privileged to look in. The Loculus was so filled with the Sacred Body that you could scarcely put a 'needle between the head and the wood, or between the feet ' and the wood: the head lay united to the body, a little raised ' with a small pillow. But the Abbot, looking close, found now a silk cloth veiling the whole Body, and then a linen cloth of 'wondrous whiteness; and upon the head was spread a small ' linen cloth, and then another small and most fine silk cloth, · as if it were the veil of a nun. These coverings being lifted off, they found now the Sacred Body all wrapt in linen; and so at length the lineaments of the same appeared. But here the Abbot stopped; saying he durst not proceed farther, or 'look at the sacred flesh naked. Taking the head between his hands, he thus spake, groaning: "Glorious Martyr, holy Edmund, blessed be the hour when thou wert born. Glorious 'Martyr, turn it not to my perdition that I have so dared to touch thee, I miserable and sinful; thou knowest my devout • love, and the intention of my mind.” And proceeding, he ⚫ touched the eyes; and the nose, which was very massive and prominent (valde grossum et valde eminentem); and then he touched the breast and arms; and raising the left arm he 'touched the fingers, and placed his own fingers between the 'sacred fingers. And proceeding he found the feet standing stiff up, like the feet of a man dead yesterday; and he touched the toes and counted them (tangendo numeravit).

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And now it was agreed that the other Brethren should be ' called forward to see the miracles; and accordingly those ten

' now advanced, and along with them six others who had stolen in without the Abbot's assent, namely, Walter of St. Alban's, Hugh the Infirmirarius, Gilbert brother of the Prior, Richard ' of Henham, Jocellus our Cellarer, and Turstan the Little; and ' all these saw the Sacred Body, but Turstan alone of them put 'forth his hand, and touched the Saint's knees and feet. And ⚫ that there might be abundance of witnesses, one of our Bre thren, John of Dice, sitting on the roof of the Church, with ⚫ the servants of the Vestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these things.'

What a scene; shining luminous effulgent, as the lamps of St. Edmund do, through the dark Night; John of Dice, with vestrymen, clambering on the roof to look through; the Convent all asleep, and the Earth all asleep,—and since then, Seven Centuries of Time mostly gone to sleep! Yes, there, sure enough, is the martyred Body of Edmund, landlord of the Eastern Counties, who, nobly doing what he liked with his own was slain three hundred years ago: and a noble awe surrounds the memory of him, symbol and promoter of many other right noble things.

But have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero-worship, now in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknives out, and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men's Hero-worship, verily it is the innermost fact of their existence, and determines all the rest,—at public hust ings, in private drawing-rooms, in church, in market, and wherever else. Have true reverence, and what indeed is inseparable therefrom, reverence the right man, all is well; have sham-re‹ verence, and what also follows, greet with it the wrong man, then all is ill, and there is nothing well. Alas, if Hero-worship become Dilettantism, and all except Mammonism be a vain grimace, how much, in this most earnest Earth, has gone and is evermore going to fatal destruction, and lies wasting in quiet lazy ruin, no man regarding it! Till at length no heavenly Ism any longer coming down upon us, Isms from the other quarter have to mount up. For the Earth, I say, is an earnest place; Life is no grimace, but a most serious fact. And so, under universal Dilettantism much having been stript bare, not the souls of men only, but their very bodies and bread-cupboards having been stript bare, and lite now no longer possible,-all